For those who are home, and for those who are on the way. For those who support the historic and just return of the land of Israel to its people, forever loyal to their inheritance, and its restoration.

Saturday, October 31, 2015

...The answers are provided, ironically, by the UN, in its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007, which asserts the right of self-determination as well as the rights to maintain the culture, institutions, religion, and language for indigenous peoples. It grants them the right to live in peace and security, and to not be subjected to genocide or expulsion from their native lands. It calls for them to have free access to their religious sites, and for them to be free from incitement to racial hatred against them. Zionism is the principle, justified by historical experience, that these rights can be guaranteed for the Jewish people only in a state under Jewish sovereignty. So why was there so much opposition to the passage of this resolution? After all, it was the World Zionist Congress.

The World Zionist Congress met last week for the 37th time since it was founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897. Like many Jewish institutions today, it has become a battleground for the Right and Left. But what happened at the meeting put into clear focus that the struggle is really between Zionism and … something else.

The bill declared that “the Jewish people is a Semitic people, indigenous to the Land of Israel and seeking international recognition of its indigenous status” …The proposal argued that “Israel’s contrived Western identity” was not only handing ammunition to its enemies to falsely label Zionism as a “colonialist” project, but that it was also placing an artificial barrier preventing peace between Israel and its other “Semitic” neighbors.

It included a statement that it “does not negate the indigenous status of any other people.” Nevertheless, it barely passed, by a vote of 51% of the delegates.

I believe that the essence of Zionism is the assertion that the Jews are an indigenous people to the land of Israel, with indigenous rights (sometimes called aboriginal rights) in the land. In fact, the Jewish people are one of the oldest documented indigenous peoples, with a unique language, culture, religion and history tied directly to the land of Israel.

The resolution refers to the struggle of the Jews to return to the land after displacement by “Roman imperialism,” but it could also have mentioned the conflict between the Jews and the Arab imperialists of the seventh century or the Jordanian and Egyptian ones that invaded the land in 1948.

A moment’s reflection should suffice to show that the narrative by which the Jews suddenly appeared in 1880 or 1948 to dispossess a flourishing ‘Palestinian’ people is nonsense. Jews have been physically present here to some extent since biblical times, and they are the paradigm case of ‘a people’ in history. ‘Palestinians’, on the other hand, are Arabs who are mostly descended from recent arrivals from Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Transjordan. Their specifically ‘Palestinian’ culture developed very recently, in opposition to what they see as the threat of Jewish (non-Arab and non-Muslim) sovereignty. They didn’t even call themselves ‘Palestinians’ until the 1960s; and prior to 1948, ‘Palestinian’ meant ‘Palestinian Jew’.

The Arabs know that Zionism rests on Jewish peoplehood, and on the connection of the Jewish people to the land – our indigenousness. They know that their moral case to displace us is based on the argument that they are a long-term indigenous people and we are European colonialists. Thus they insist there is no Jewish people, only a religion. Thus they attempt to erase Jewish history in the land – by arrogating Jewish holy sites to themselves and by physically destroying archaeological evidence of the ancient Jewish presence. Their claims may appear ludicrous, but they have been successful in persuading large numbers of people.

Friday, October 30, 2015

...But just in case listeners were by now drifting off message, Connolly brought them back with more promotion of equal suffering and inaccurate portrayal of violent riots as “protests”.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
29 October '15..

As noted in a previous post, the October 18th edition of BBC Radio 4’s ‘The World This Weekend’ included an item by Kevin Connolly (available for a limited period of time from 25:41 here).The World This Weekend

In addition to Connolly’s amplification of baseless conspiracy theories pertaining to Temple Mount and promotion of the notion that the “identity” of Temple Mount is “Islamic”, a number of additional themes seen repeatedly in BBC coverage of the current wave of terrorism in Israel were promoted by Connolly and the programme’s presenter, Edward Stourton.

Stourton’s introduction began with promotion of equivalence between Israelis murdered by terrorists and the perpetrators of those attacks – who clearly interest him more than their victims.

“Forty-one Palestinians and seven Israelis have been killed in the latest eruption of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories but the figures don’t really tell the full story. Many of the attacks which have resulted in those deaths were carried out by young Palestinian men with knives and they must surely have acted in the knowledge that they would almost certainly be killed themselves. The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has thrown up violence in all sorts of forms, but this is new.”

The inaccurate notion that the current violence is “new” has also been seen in previous BBC content but of course there is nothing “new” at all about knife attacks or – as the second Intifada showed – about Palestinians committing terror attacks in which the likelihood of their being killed in the process was either obvious or intended.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter,

...Israel contributes to the PLO’s diplomatic success at the UN because it refuses to do what Rabin recognized was necessary 20 years ago. Rather than learn from his record, Israel has spent the past 20 years distorting his record. The time has come to do justice to Rabin and end the Oslo process once and for all.

photo credit:Marc Israel Sellem

Caroline Glick..
Column One/JPost..
29 October '15..

It is notable that the same week that Israel marked the 20th anniversary of the assassination of prime minister and defense minister Yitzhak Rabin, Palestinian Authority President and PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas went before the UN Human Rights Commission and asked the UN to establish “a special regime of international protection” for the Palestinians against Israel.

“It is no longer useful to waste time in negotiations just for the sake of negotiations. What is required is the ending of the occupation in accordance with international legitimacy,” said the man who has never held good-faith negotiations with Israel in his life and has refused to even pretend to hold them for the past seven years.

It is ironic that Abbas issued this latest salvo in his diplomatic war against Israel the week that Israel marked Rabin’s assassination. As our putative peace partner was slandering us on yet another international stage, yet again our introspection around the anniversary of the murder showed that we have learned very little over the past 20 years.

As is the case every year, the Left used the anniversary of Rabin’s murder to accuse the Right of responsibility both for Rabin’s assassination and for the failure of the peace process with the PLO.

For their part, nationalist commentators restated the obvious fact they repeat every year: There is a world of difference between solicitation of murder and a policy dispute.

Israel’s annual national self-flagellation around the anniversary of Rabin’s murder is a twofold travesty. It is a travesty first because it prevents us from coming to terms with the true reason that Oslo has failed. And it is a travesty because it distorts to the point of nonrecognition Rabin’s record as a leader and his lifelong dedication to Israel’s national security.

The Left’s claim that Yigal Amir killed not only Rabin but the chance of peace rests on the assumption that unlike the five men who have served as prime minister since Rabin was killed, Rabin would have reached a final accord with Yasser Arafat if he had lived to finish his term in office.

This claim ignores the nature of the Oslo process and distorts Rabin’s position on it.

Contrary to what Oslo’s architects and supporters claim, the Oslo process never could have brought peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It never could have brought peace because the PLO was never interested in peace.

Right after Yasser Arafat concluded the initial deal with Israel in September 1993, he flew from Washington to South Africa. There he told a Muslim audience that the peace process was a fraud. Arafat explained that the Oslo process would weaken Israel while strengthening the Palestinians. They would use this improved position to achieve their goal of Israel’s destruction through jihad.

This wasn’t a one-time fall from grace on Arafat’s part. It was his consistent message to both the Muslim world writ large and to the Palestinians.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

...The final words in the professors’ commentary speak again of love: While some people boycott Israel out of hatred, they will do it out of “love for Israel and the desire to save it.” In taking this position, they reject the views of the vast majority of “progressive” Israelis they claim to support and align themselves with every enemy of the Jewish state. They are of course free to do this, but they should be more candid with us — and with themselves. They are trying to destroy Israel to save it, from Cambridge and Chicago, while Israelis face dangers every day. One such danger is terrorism. Another, we can see, is foolish professors whose intellectual pretensions lead them to ignore history and infantilize Palestinians.

Elliott Abrams..
Washington Post..
27 October '15..

We love Israel. We love it more than we love other nations. That’s why we must do all we can to destroy its economy.

That is the message of the bizarre Oct. 25 Sunday Opinion column by professors Steven Levitsky and Glen Weyl. Their argument is simple: Israel’s “occupation” of the West Bank and Gaza is now “permanent,” unless sufficient economic damage is done to force Israel to change course.

What’s missing here? Two things: history and Palestinians.

History reveals two recent attempts by Israeli leaders to negotiate a comprehensive peace with the Palestinians — by prime ministers Ehud Barak in 2000 and Ehud Olmert in 2008 — which were rejected by Palestine Liberation Organization leaders Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. Of this, Levitsky and Weyl say nothing. They also do not mention Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, seeming to regard it as “occupied” even though not a single Israeli soldier or civilian lives there.

Instead, they simply claim that “domestic movements” in Israel to avoid “making the occupation permanent” have “withered.” Now, it is obvious that the Israeli left, and the “peace movement” there, have been weakened. Why might that be? The professors, self-styled “progressives,” tell us it is “thanks to an economic boom and the temporary security provided by the West Bank barrier and the Iron Dome missile defense system.” This shows a deep lack of understanding of Israel and Israelis, for the “peace movement” has “withered,” all right — but for a very different reason.

This reason is the conduct of Palestinians, a factor that is almost entirely absent from the professors’ account. This is remarkable. The Palestinian refusal of negotiations is not mentioned. The waves of terror — from Arafat’s intifadas to today’s stabbings — are barely mentioned. The only mention of the Palestinians’ rationale is this: “the occupation itself . . . crucially, remains the principal motive behind Palestinian violence.”

Really? The “occupation” began in 1967. Was there no Palestinian violence before that? What of the decades of Palestinian terrorism meant to stop Jews from coming to Israel and from establishing their state, and then continuing from 1948 to 1967? Sadly, Palestinian “violence,” which the professors scrupulously avoid calling terrorism, long predated the “occupation.” The fundamental problem is the widespread Palestinian rejection not of Israeli settlements but of the existence of the state of Israel.

..The Arab aggression against the Jews is based on an outright lie, which, once believed, becomes reality for the believers. Fraudulent reality then takes on a life of its own. If nurtured, it grows, multiplies and transforms into an axiomatic premise for a searing sense of injustice. The lie binds. Spurious grievances confine and scourge those they ensnare....Reminding the world over and over that visceral Arab enmity spearheaded by Husseini predated so-called occupation, the establishment of a Jewish state or the Holocaust – and indeed that it contributed significantly to the unparalleled tragedy of European Jewry – becomes an imperative rather than an esoteric preoccupation.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
29 October '15..

No one can accuse Israel’s Left of missing a beat. But the attentive ear of our homegrown self-appointed guardians of other people’s consciences is selective. All sorts of blood-curdling incitement throughout the Arab/Muslim realm fail to resonate with them. Yet they amplify with relish any aside by the true objects of their animus – Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu foremost.

And so, the other day Netanyahu had the temerity to remark that the Palestinians’ still-venerated Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini opposed Hitler’s initial plan to merely ethnically cleanse Europe of Jews and exile them to such exotic locations as Madagascar. Husseini insisted the Jews burn.

It’s important to note that at the time of Husseini’s meeting with Hitler in June 1941, the “final solution” hadn’t yet become official Third Reich policy (despite slaughter that had already begun in occupied Eastern Europe). The Final Solution would be formally adopted only on January 20, 1942 at the Wannsee Conference.

For outward appearances at least, Germany’s declared objective was to expel Jews from Europe. Husseini couldn’t abide the thought and railed against mere banishment. He clamored for the Jews’ physical obliteration instead. This doesn’t mean that he inspired Hitler or that he gave him the idea for wiping all Jews out but it does powerfully attest to the mindset of the then-principal leader of the Arab world.

But who cares about fine distinctions? Instantly, a great indignant outcry arose from the righteous ranks of the Left. Netanyahu, it was bewailed, is cleansing Hitler of guilt and pinning it on Husseini. It’s as if villainy can only reside in a single persona and the villain’s kindred ideologues and avid accomplices are therefore unjustly accused.

So let’s set the record straight – Husseini wasn’t just Hitler’s useful fool. His hands were stained with Jewish blood – lots of it – and the Allies indeed declared him a wanted war criminal at the end of WWII.

He reached Cairo by the skin of his teeth but with much Nazi loot, having fled Germany four days before its collapse. The Arab world not only harbored him (as they did numerous other fugitive Nazi mass-murderers) but Husseini was adulated.

On October 1, 1948, in the midst of the synchronized Arab military onslaught on newborn Israel, the Egyptians installed Husseini as president of the “All-Palestine government” they established in the Gaza Strip (with Jerusalem as its declared capital). It was formally abolished only in 1959.

Husseini’s quasi-state was recognized by all then-independent Arab states except Transjordan, which feared his ambitions vis-à-vis its own bit of Palestinian conquest – the West Bank. Husseini is widely considered responsible for the assassination of King Abdullah I (the current Jordanian monarch’s great-grandfather). He also recruited Bosnian SS-veterans as mercenaries to aid in the genocidal invasion of the Jewish state.

Yasser Arafat asserted that “it’s an honor to march in the path Haj-Amin carved.” In 2002 he told London’s Sharq al-Awsat that Husseini is “our hero.” Likening himself to his mentor, Arafat stressed: “I was one of his troops.”

...What line of thinking would inspire a reporter to insert into the story language about this being a "pocketknife, the kind Boy Scouts use"? It is how The New York Times transforms a fact — a Palestinian man caught on video wielding a knife while charging at Israelis — into a story of a Palestinian boy scout, a teen who may or may not have had a knife slain by Israel which may or may not have planted evidence near his body.

Jodi Rudoren outrageously decided not to inform readers that, in fact, there is video footage, captured by an MSNBC cameraman, of the man holding his knife in the air while running toward Israelis. Instead, working within the boundaries of conspiracy theory, she mentions only that Israeli police, after the fact, shared a photo of a knife next to the boy. We discuss that journalistic whitewash here.

But the reporter goes even further. Note the highlighted portion of the text above. The way the newspaper frames it, even if the photo wasn't a nefarious setup by the Israeli police, the "slain teenager" — and it's worth mentioning that The New York Times refers to 19-year-old "men" overwhelming more often than 19-year-old "teenagers" (see update below) — was merely holding a "Boy Scout" knife.

No, it was very much not a Boy Scout knife. This is the image of the knife released by Israeli police.

...it doesn’t seem to be asking too much to expect influential media outlets to use plain, accurate non-euphemistic words when referring to people who engage in such grotesque acts of racially motivated violence.

Adam Levick..
UK Media Watch..
28 October '15..

As some news headlines on the recent Arab terror spree havedemonstrated, the media’s capacity to use obfuscatory language to characterize Palestinian terror and extremism is at times quite extraordinary. Not only are editors often reluctant to use the ‘subjective’ word “terrorist” to describe extremists who attack Jewish civilians, but they also often insist on using words which obscure the malevolent nature of such acts.

Here’s the headline of an article in the Oct. 27 edition of The Economist:

The word restive is an adjective which describes someone “unable to keep still or silent and becoming increasingly difficult to control, especially because of impatience, dissatisfaction, or boredom.”

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter,

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

...It is so obvious that it shouldn't need to be said, but when Palestinian Arabs seek to prevent Israeli Jews from visiting the Temple Mount or exercising their basic right to pray, it is the responsibility of the decision-makers to come to the defense of the latter rather than yield to the former. So let's stop bad-mouthing those Jews who want to visit or pray where our forefathers once stood. Dreaming of Jewish destiny is not extremism. But denying and disparaging it most certainly is.

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
28 October '15..

Amid the Palestinian terrorist campaign in recent weeks, the Temple Mount has taken center stage, prompting a loud and growing chorus of extremists to try to exploit the situation for political gain. Hurling abuse at their opponents, and blaming them for Israel's woes, these radicals are putting forward a vision that, if implemented, would bring tragedy upon us all.

It is therefore time for Israeli society to take a stand and decisively declare: we will not cast our lot with those who seek to deny or sever the Jewish connection with our holiest place. After all, the real Temple Mount extremists are not those who long to visit the site or pray there, but those who denigrate and try to silence them.

Whatever one might think about the political fate of Jerusalem, it is simply impossible to deny the central role that the dream of a rebuilt Temple plays in Jewish belief. Like it or not, the longing for a restoration of the Temple is no less central to our faith than the desire for peace or social justice.

Ever since that dark day more than 19 centuries ago when the Roman legions set the Second Temple ablaze, the Jewish people have nourished the hope of returning to the Mount.

Indeed, since Talmudic times, Jews have concluded the Amida prayer, recited thrice daily, with the following plea: "May it be Your will, O Lord our God and the God of our forefathers, that the Holy Temple be rebuilt, speedily in our days."

Does that mean that our ancestors were "extremists" for the past 1,500 years without even knowing it? And just last month, in the Mussaf prayer recited on Succot, we implored God to "be compassionate to us and to Your Temple with great mercy, and rebuild it soon and magnify its glory."

Anyone who paints Jews who wish to visit the Temple Mount, or who dare to dream of a restored Temple, as wild-eyed wackos is engaging in a frontal assault on Jewish practice and belief. Enough with such derision and childish name-calling! Take, for example, the reaction to remarks made by deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely, who told the Knesset Channel on Monday that her "dream is to see the Israeli flag flying over the Temple Mount. This is the holiest place for the Jewish people." While she later clarified that this was her personal opinion and did not reflect official government policy, her proud and patriotic comments provoked an inexplicably harsh reaction.

In a fit of outrage, MK Yoel Hasson of the Zionist Union demanded that Hotovely be dismissed from her position immediately, asserting that, "With the stubbornness of a donkey, the messianic deputy minister continues to incite the entire Middle East."

Why should a Jew dreaming of raising an Israeli flag over our people's most sacred site warrant such verbal abuse? And from a member of Knesset, no less! What does Hasson think our ancestors meant when they recited "Next year in a rebuilt Jerusalem"? Does he think they were referring to the refurbished Waldorf Astoria hotel on Agron street? The Jewish people's emotional, religious and mystical bond with the Temple Mount is something that cuts across political boundaries. When left-wing foreign minister Tzipi Livni told The New York Times Sunday Magazine on July 8, 2007, that, "My existence here comes out of the connection between me and Temple Mount. This is the umbilical cord. It comes from Jerusalem," she wasn't unwittingly joining the so-called fringe.

...Given its reach and influence, does the NY Times, and its talented team of news producers and chroniclers, have a responsibility to anything, to anyone? To the truth? For the NYT's band of news packagers, is there such a thing as truth?

..........
But for us, the part that stopped us in our tracks was this pair of lines:

To most Israeli Jews, what has been happening is a spate of random attacks against innocents. Palestinians see it as excessive force against not only attackers but anyone who looks like them.

Just like that. A real challenge. What's a thinking person to do in the face of opposing forces that seem to be about equally believable? Evidently just throw hands in air and declare that it's all too hard. What then? Go back to safe formula of pouring scorn on the side perceived to be stronger, less exotic, more privileged?

But we're wondering whether, as professionals in the news reporting industry, the editors at the Times know of a long, documented history of official Israel inventing evidence. Is there a catalogue of the Israeli side making absurd, extravagant claims about the disputed facts? Do Palestinian Arab public figures have a track record of incisiveness dedication to the facts, a respect for history, forensic credibility?

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter,

...but what are readers supposed to make of the other "incidents" dotting the map in places like Raanana, Petah Tikva, Tel Aviv, Afula, Kiryat Gat, Beersheba, and more? That Israeli and Palestinian gangs of errant teenagers were duking it out in "street violence"? This distorted terminology earns Reuters yet another entry in the popular collection of abominable and absurd journalistic characterizations of Palestinian violence, "Wave of Palestinian Violence Accompanied By Spate of Bad Writing."

Tamar Sternthal..
CAMERA Snapshots..
27 October '15..

Following last week's photo caption which whitewashed Palestinian attacks against Israelis as "Palestinians confronting Israelis," Reuters' graphics department has come up with new terminology for Palestinian stabbings, shootings and ramming attacks against Israeli civilians and security forces: "street violence."

The text at the top left of the graphic reads:

At least fifty-five Palestinians and nine Israelis have died in recent street violence, which was in part triggered by Palestinians' anger over what they see as Jewish encroachment on Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

In fact, some 30 Palestinians were killed as they carried out, or attempted to carry out, stabbing, shooting and ramming attacks against Israelis. The rest were killed as they engaged in violent clashes with Israeli security forces. The nine Israelis were killed in Palestinian stabbing, ramming and shooting attacks.

...Indeed, along with the Palestinian Authority, this terror industry is propelled by European elements, including those with affiliations to European Union governments. Despite their declared ambition of promoting peace and understanding, they are essentially providing this terror campaign with all the fuel it needs -- incitement, justification and glorification.

Gerald M. Steinberg..
Israel Hayom..
25 October '15..

In order to maintain a prolonged terror campaign, it is imperative to cultivate a deep-seated hatred. This hatred reverberates with university graduate students, law students, phone company employees with a steady and decent paycheck, and even the minds of 13-year-old children. More than anything, however, such a campaign requires funding. Indeed, along with the Palestinian Authority, this terror industry is propelled by European elements, including those with affiliations to European Union governments. Despite their declared ambition of promoting peace and understanding, they are essentially providing this terror campaign with all the fuel it needs -- incitement, justification and glorification.

Incitement

Imams in mosques and the leaders of Fatah and Hamas use the old libel of "Al-Aqsa is in danger" to incite the Palestinian masses. Other organizations, however, also contribute to this narrative, which has proved its effectiveness. For example, the Alternative Information Center, which is registered in Israel and is directly funded, among other sources, by the EU, published a call for "solidarity with the popular Palestinian resistance," while warning that "fanatical groups of settlers supported by the government ... are desecrating the [Temple Mount] compound ... and are calling to destroy the mosque." In addition to accusing Israel of colonialist policies of ethnic cleansing, it is also claimed that Israel and "Zionist militias" are responsible for the destruction of hundreds of churches and mosques since 1948.

Justification

In an emergency report published by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, a Gaza-based organization funded by European governments (including some from the EU), Israeli victims are uniformly described as "settlers," which is supposed provide political "justification" for the violence. Moreover, the report turns the attacker into the victim and blames the Israeli security forces for committing crimes. The photograph of 13-year-old terrorist Ahmad Saleh Manasra, showing him wounded and bleeding after being neutralized, became the poster child of Palestinian propaganda; similar to Muhammad al-Dura during the Second Intifada -- used to portray Israel as a child killer. While completely ignoring video footage documenting his terrorist attack and eyewitness testimonies, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights writes in its report that Ahmad was on his way to buy a dove when he was attacked. And if that claim is not enough to render the organization's professionalism and objectives a complete and utter joke -- there are no dove stores in Pisgat Ze'ev either.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Striving to help create a space for justice and peace. Except when they don't.

LOTL..
27 October '15..

(cptpalestine.com) Christian Peacemaker Teams Palestine is a faith-based organization that supports Palestinian-led, non-violent, grassroots resistance to the Israeli occupation and the unjust structures that uphold it. By collaborating with local Palestinian and Israeli peacemakers and educating people in our home communities we strive to help create a space for justice and peace.

Except when they don't.For example, when bemoaning youths who are not youths, but are celebrated personalities in their own right. Raed would be a case in point, found in this CPT Facebook posting

...In actuality, Gaza has become an independent Palestinian state, and this Hamas-ruled state is making a pitch, by means of the “Al-Quds intifada,” to annex the West Bank as well. This, in turn, is only a phase in the phased plan to implement an ethnic cleansing of the Jews from the Land of Israel. As stated by Mahmoud al-Zahar (Falestin, October 17, 2015), head of Hamas’ Political Department and considered one of the pillars of the movement, the struggle to “expel the Jews from all Palestine is a religious commandment prior to it’s being a national duty.”

- Gaza has in effect become an independent Palestinian state, and this Hamas-ruled state is making a pitch, by means of the “Al-Quds Intifada,” to annex the West Bank as well. For Hamas, this is only one phase in the phased plan to implement an ethnic cleansing of the Jews from the Land of Israel.- By unleashing Palestinian terror PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas hopes to bring about greater international intervention in the conflict, and, thereby, to give greater heft to UN General Assembly Resolution 67/19 of December 4, 2012, which recognizes “Palestine” as a nonmember observer state of the UN.- Hamas, which in the past was a bitter foe of the PLO, has made it a supreme goal to take over the organization. It thereby seeks to gain the status of sole representative of the Palestinian people.- Despite his declared support for a national reconciliation, Abbas is in no hurry to incorporate Hamas in the PLO institutions and is making this conditional on gaining real control of Gaza.- In recent years the Hamas leadership has been trying to spark an intifada in the West Bank that will lead to the PA’s collapse.

The wave of Palestinian terror against Israel, which the Palestinian leadership calls an “intifada” (a violent uprising that includes an armed struggle), is winning open support from all the representative organizations and institutions of the Palestinian people, including the PLO, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, the Hamas authorities who control Gaza, and organizations representing the Palestinian diaspora.

The green light for the intifada was given by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 30, in which he lauded Palestinian terror and threatened political chaos – that is, a descent into an all-out intifada-type conflict.1

By unleashing Palestinian terror Abbas hopes to bring about greater international intervention in the conflict, and, thereby, to give greater heft to UN General Assembly Resolution 67/19 of December 4, 2012,2 which recognizes “Palestine” as a nonmember observer state of the UN within the borders of June 4, 1967, including east Jerusalem. Thus the Palestinian terror is meant to leverage international pressure on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank without negotiations or conditions. The Palestinian struggle against Israel will then continue from the new borders under improved circumstances.

The Hamas leadership, too, sees the UN resolution as a historic opportunity for it, particularly the provision that recognizes “the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, in accordance with a decision by the Palestine National Council, [as] entrusted with the powers and responsibilities of the Provisional Government of the State of Palestine….”

...Sometimes, a man’s got to do what a man—or woman—has got to do. And shooting someone who wants to take your life is as correct and appropriate a response at the border between California and Mexico as it is in the clash between terrorist Palestinians and Israeli citizens.

Micah Halpern..
Observer.com..
26 October '15..

About midnight, on October 21st, a man wielding a knife lunged at a border patrol officer. The assailant was shot four times.

Did you hear about this incident? Probably not. That’s because the incident took place took place not somewhere in Israel, where all incidents of this type are recorded and broadcast around the world, but at the border crossing in Calexico, California, just across the border from Mexicali, Mexico.

The reason the man was shot by a Border & Patrol Protection officer and, subsequently, died from his wounds, should be obvious. People wielding knives and lunging at police—or anyone else, intend to injure or kill and it is essential to stop those attacker immediately—before they do their harm and people are killed.

If the Palestinians speak untruths it’s one thing. But when the United States delivers falsehoods, it’s something else entirely.

This incident did not make international headlines. There was no outcry and no rage for the poor guy even after details emerged and we learned that he was on a bicycle and jumped off it to perpetrate his attack and that he was denied entry into the United States and that was why he went on his rampage.

There is a double standard here.

If this incident would have happened in Israel, the country’s many critics would be screaming about the murder of innocent people riding their bikes. The Palestinian propaganda machine would have turned the truth upside down to convince the world that the killer was the victim.

...Naturally when an Israeli criticizes Israel, a listener is prepared to credit what he says much more than when it comes from an outsider. Anti-Israel Israelis are helped in this by the large fraction of Diaspora Jews who, for whatever reason, are always found among Israel’s most vehement critics. There is no comparable phenomenon among Arabs and Muslims, who maintain admirable message discipline.

Despite the vicious and brutal nature of the violent uprising that is under way in Israel now, the rest of the world is either silent or approving. The implication seems to be “they are getting what they deserved.” How did this happen?

When conversations regarding Israel do ensue, they deal with the disproportionate use of power during the 2014 war in Gaza, the high death toll among Palestinians (statistics which many British students with whom I have spoken can quote), the violent behavior of settlers towards Palestinians documented in videos that have gone viral in the UK as elsewhere, the checkpoints, the economic ruin of the Gaza strip and the continued refusal of Israel to recognize Palestinian independence. There are students who can recite without difficulty Prime Minister Netanyahu’s comment on Israel’s election day about the need to counter ‘droves’ of Arab Israelis on their way to vote. …Despite immense efforts, Oxford scholars do not regard Israel as a high tech nation, a gay tourist destination or a model for modern democracy. They remain unconvinced by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s assertions that Israel is the bastion of Western norms, the forefront in the struggle over terror. Nor do they prescribe [sic] to Israel’s moral relativism according to which the world must denounce Saudi Arabia and Bashar Assad before it denounces Israel. In the eyes of Oxford’s students, injustice elsewhere is not a defense for injustice in Israel.To this international community, Israel is synonymous with bigotry, violence, hate and the oppression of human rights. It is the global spread of this notion that reveals that no public diplomacy campaign, no sophisticated national slogan and no infographic shared online by StandWithUs can counter the impact of the images that arose from Gaza in 2008, and 2012 and 2014, or those that currently emerge from Jerusalem.

His own political leanings and the fact that this was published in Ha’aretz are unimportant. The picture he paints is confirmed by other observers in universities in the UK and the US; you could hear the same things at Berkeley or the University of Toronto. It almost seems as though the more prestigious the institution, the worse they think of Israel. The students at these universities are future leaders of the West in politics, business, law and every other field.

Anyone who knows the truth knows that the ‘evidence’ cited for Israel’s alleged depravity is nonsense. The actual death toll of the last Gaza war was about half the number the students will cite (which came from Hamas sources) and most of those were Hamas fighters; the absurdity that Israel supplies Hamas with food, water, medicines and electricity while it targets Israeli towns with a blitz of rockets is ignored; as is the basic fact that the ‘independence’ sought by the Arabs is the death or dispersal of the hated Jews from their homeland.

The objective of the demonization and delegitimization campaign is to support diplomatic and legal warfare against the state, to damage her attempts to defend herself and to prevent her from realizing political benefit even from military victories. Military strength by itself is not enough to prevent political defeat.

How did Israel allow herself, with all of her alleged intellectual muscle, to get into this situation? How could there have been such a massive failure to tell our story – our true story to the world? Can it be turned around?

Monday, October 26, 2015

Umm Muhammad Shamasne, whose son Muhammad was killed while perpetrating a terror attack on a bus in Jerusalem on October 12, was recently interviewed in her home by the Lebanese Al-Quds TV channel. Offering the interviewer candy to celebrate her son's martyrdom, Umm Muhammad Shamasne said that she hoped her other sons would follow in his footsteps, and pulled out a knife, threatening: "My deeds will speak louder than words." The interview aired on October 22, 2015.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter,

...In the end, the more Jews clamor for their rights and recognition in connection with the Temple Mount and to it, the more the Muslims are reminded that they are conquerors and occupiers in Jerusalem, that the Dome of the Rock was built as a memorial to the Jewish Temple which preceded it and that all their historical reconstruction of events is false and artificial. As is their nationalism viv a vis “Palestine”. It is all made up.

Yisrael Medad..
Green-lined/JPost..
26 October '15..

The arrangements adopted concerning the Temple Mount which Secretary of State John Kerry oversaw will not bring peace and quiet, will not assist in apportioning blame in the future (in fact, the screaming banshees were back on Sunday) and have sunk America to a new low as to whether its commitments to allies hold solid.

In assigning blame to Israel when the Islamic claims are so outrageous, so irrational, so non-liberal, so negating any humanist values which America upholds in addition to the violation by Jordan of the spirit of Article 9 of the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty.

a very lively Israeli movement seeking to end the status quo, first by permitting Jewish prayer, eventually by rebuilding Solomon’s Temple and restoring animal sacrifice. Well-funded institutes in Jerusalem are preparing the sacrificial implements and training hereditary priests in their use. It was once a lunatic fringe. Today it’s a growing movement with strong support in the Orthodox community.

Would he describe the Islamists so? Would he dare to do so? And why not?

…I hope that based on these conversations we can finally put to rest some of the false assumptions, perceptions about the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount. Those perceptions are stoking the tensions and fueling the violence, and it is important for us to end the provocative rhetoric and to start to change the public narrative that comes out of those false perceptions.

Of course, one could point out another anomaly that should unsettle Western diplomats - that Jordan rejected camera surveillance two years ago, probably because it didn't want to be seen as cooperating, and thereby somehow recognizing, Israeli control and/or sovereignty over the Temple Mount and all Jerusalem. So which is it: yes, cameras or no cameras?

...Withdrawals from territory or even concessions in Jerusalem won’t satisfy this blood lust any more than a withdrawal of every settler, soldier, and settlement from Gaza prevented it from being turned into a terrorist state run by Hamas. The reality of this culture of hate isn’t easy to accept for those who prefer to believe Abbas really is a man of peace and that a two-state solution is viable. But it remains the real obstacle to peace.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
23 October '15..

The latest wave of Palestinian terrorism continues to take its toll of Israeli dead and injured this week with stabbings, shootings, fire bombings and attempts to run over Jewish pedestrians. That means millions of Jews in Jerusalem and the West Bank, not to mention cities throughout the country where attacks have occurred, remain on alert. But Israelis aren’t getting much sympathy these days no matter what the Palestinians do.

Though the violence is being driven by lies about mythical Jewish plans to destroy the Temple Mount mosques, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization voted this week to condemn Israeli “aggression” in Jerusalem while determining that various Jewish shrines throughout the country were solely Muslim. UNESCO gave official sanction to the blood libels fueling a new holy war as well as condemning Israel because so many of the terrorists attacking Jews were killed before they could stab or shoot more of them. Yet until now, relatively little attention has been given to the way Palestinian popular culture has embraced not so much a new wave of nationalism as a spirit of blood lust. But while a front-page article in today’s New York Times devoted to the topic was, in that sense, a breakthrough, it was perhaps to be expected that the only critical notes about this dismaying trend in the piece concerned the poor musical quality of the hit tunes extolling murder.

While the violent and hate-driven nature of Palestinian pop culture is not a surprise to anyone who follows the subject on essential websites that monitor the Muslim world like Memri.org and Palestine Media Watch, this is news to the readers of the Times, who are more accustomed to articles that paint Israeli society in the worst possible light. But the fact that the top hits of the day among Palestinians are titled “Stab, stab,” or “Run Over, Run Over the Settler,” ought to give even Americans who tend to idealize attacks on Israelis as a legitimate form of protest pause.

The article correctly points out that popular music is integral to spreading the message that killing random Jews with knives or by any other means is a laudable activity. Some of the artists tell the Times that their goal is only to get Palestinians to stand up for their rights. But it’s hard to see how pulling a knife and stabbing ordinary Israelis will do that. That’s especially true when you recall, as Times articles never do, that the Palestinian leadership has rejected several Israeli offers of statehood and independence that would have given them control over almost all of the West Bank, a share of Jerusalem, and Gaza.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

...We’re at war with a particularly cruel and implacable enemy. This should be the lesson we learn from the past 24 days, though we should have learned it long ago. Wars are won by both defeating the enemy in battle and making (what’s left of) him understand that he has absolutely no reason to go on fighting. War is hell, as Sherman said. True. But it wasn’t our choice. Let’s get on with it and get it over with.

It is 24 days since the murder of Eitam and Na’ama Henkin, the event which is considered the beginning of the ongoing “stabbing (shooting, burning, running over) intifada.”

Last night there was a demonstration in Tel Aviv organized by the “Peace Now” movement. Several thousand people demanded that Netanyahu resign and carried banners calling for a “diplomatic solution” with the Palestinian Arabs.

Several thousand? Once the Left could get tens of thousands to join its protests. But only the terminally blockheaded (and John Kerry) still think that the murder wave has anything to do with “the occupation” or the presence or absence of a ‘peace process’ or settlements in Judea and Samaria or economic deprivation.

It isn’t possible to tell Israelis to deny what they see with their own eyes, and sometimes feel with their own violated or burned flesh.

There are too many counterarguments to the Left’s position. The terror that Jews have experienced in the land of Israel began before the state was founded, continued during the years that that there was no occupation and no settlements, got worse when the ‘peace process’ brought the evil seeds of PLO terror back from Tunis, exploded into suicide-bombing violence when Israel tried to give up 95% of the territories in the framework of a peace agreement, and brought thousands of rockets down on our heads when we unilaterally withdrew from Gaza.

Today’s stabbers and burners and murder drivers come from the highest levels of Palestinian Arab society. No deprivation here.

The knives and guns speak to us, as does the incitement on social media, where Arabs are shown how to cut grooves into their knives and put poison on them in order to make them more deadly. Nothing is as eloquent as the way they ram their cars into Jews at bus stops and then get out to hack at them with meat cleavers, the way Arab bystanders spit at and kick a Jewish woman bleeding from the knife still stuck in her back, the way they throw firebombs into the laps of Jewish children strapped into their car seats.

They aren’t shy about telling us what they want, both by word and deed. What could be clearer? They are telling us, get out, Jew. Their religion, their politics, their ethnic-racial hatred all want us gone or dead. To them we are a different species, like the cats and dogs and farm animals that they casually mistreat.

The Left and our pretend-allies-but-really-enemies abroad keep trying to ‘make sense’ of it, usually by picking on something that we are doing that is causing them to be so ‘frustrated’. They are losing hope, we are told. If we would give them their hope back they would stop killing us – as if concessions ever had any effect except encouraging more terrorism!

...It's an intense and difficult time, with considerable fear in the air, as well as anger and deep resentment at the overt nature of the incitement emanating from the political leadership of the Palestinian Arabs. It's hard for ordinary Israelis to comprehend how the people on the other side - chief among them Mahmoud Abbas, the mis-named "moderate" - show such willingness to weaponize their own children and place them in the front lines of the attacks on mainly-civilian Israeli targets.

The "moderate" Abbas in front of posterof his mentor, the arch-terrorist and Nobel
Prize laureate Yasser Arafat

"Al-Aksa is ours and so is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They [the Jews] have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet. We won’t allow them to do so and we will do whatever we can to defend Jerusalem... Each drop of blood that was spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood as long as it’s for the sake of Allah. Every shahid (martyr) will be in heaven and every wounded person will be rewarded, by Allah’s will." [Abbas quoted in Jerusalem Post, September 16, 2015]

Thoughts of pure blood, of filthy feet, of heaven and of being rewarded for the spilling of blood have propelled an onslaught of Palestinian Arab savagery against Israelis, overwhelmingly against non-uniformed Israelis and visitors, since Mahmoud Abbas uttered those words.

Some selected scenes from the past 36 hours of this savage war of terror directed at Israelis. (And to be clear - we don't claim to be reporting all the terror attacks; nowhere near it, in fact. There are too many of them in too many parts of our beautiful country, and it's simply depressing to list them in the numbers in which they are happening.)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter,

...Palestinian terrorism is fueled by the inherently immoral "moral equivalence" between Israeli counterterrorism and Palestinian terrorism, which grossly misrepresents Middle East reality. It is fueled by foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority, which funds hate education. It is rewarded by calls to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority, while Abbas promotes hate education. It is emboldened by Western pressure for further Israeli concessions and Western denial of Israel's moral high ground in the physical high ground of Judea and Samaria.

Palestinian terrorism has haunted Arab societies in Jordan (especially during the 1968-1970 era of PLO terrorism), Lebanon (particularly during the 1971-1982 civil wars), Kuwait (during the 1990 invasion by Saddam Hussein), Iraq (until 2002, as an arm of Saddam Hussein's ruthless domestic oppression), Syria (until 2012, bolstering Bashar Assad's regime) and currently in Egypt (collaborating with the Muslim Brotherhood terror organization). Pro-U.S. Arab regimes consider Palestinian terrorism a clear and present danger, never fighting on behalf of Palestinians. Sometimes these regimes launch severe military blows (1970 Black September in Jordan) and expulsions (300,000 expelled from Kuwait), showering them with rhetoric, but not resources.

Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1993, Palestinian terrorism has afflicted the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, denying the Palestinians civil liberties and instituting a corrupt, oppressive reign of horror. It prompted most Christians to flee from Ramallah (home of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' headquarters), Bethlehem and Beit Jallah. In addition, Muslim emigration from the Palestinian Authority has increased since 2000. While Egypt prevents emigration from Gaza through Sinai, Gaza's Arabs have emigrated, in increasing numbers, via the Mediterranean. Moreover, Palestinians flow across Jerusalem's municipal lines, escaping Abbas' tyranny to receive Israeli residency, social benefits and human rights.

Palestinian terrorists have targeted pro-U.S. Arab regimes and "the arrogant, infidel, Great Satan," the U.S., joining the ayatollahs in Iran (since the toppling of the shah in 1979), Taliban, al-Qaida, Islamic State and other Islamic terror organizations. Osama bin Laden's role model and spiritual mentor, Abdullah Azam, was from a village in Samaria.

Palestinian terrorism is a modern-day branch of Islamic terrorism, which has plagued the Middle East -- and beyond -- since the appearance of Islam in the seventh century. The current intensification of Islamic terrorism throughout the Middle East provides a tailwind to Palestinian terrorism.

Saturday, October 24, 2015

...The jihad against us is only partly about physical violence. It is mostly about mental intimidation ‎and exploitation of our weaknesses. Yet this challenge is also an opportunity: If we rise to the ‎occasion, overcome fear, and beat back the jihadi scourge, then Israel will take its rightful place ‎as a world leader in the defense of freedom, along with being a nation of innovation and the ‎world's spiritual superpower.

Yishai Fleisher..
Israel Hayom..
23 October '15..

The current state of affairs in Israel is full of lessons and truths. The sooner we learn them, the ‎sooner we can stop the attacks.‎

‎1. We can stop feeling guilty‎.

A few good things have come out of the recent wave of terror in the streets of ‎Israel. The first is that the facade that jihadis are somehow struggling for self-determination, ‎social justice, or any other noble idea has been unmasked. It is clear to us now that, unlike what ‎we've been urged to believe for the last 30 years, jihadis don't want peace. They want to ‎annihilate Jews, Judaism, and the State of Israel. This is great news. Because once the ‎pretense is dropped, we stop falling for it and begin unloading the guilty feeling that we are at ‎fault for everything. We drop the idea, for example, that building in Jerusalem or Judea is causing this war. Those few ‎voices who still try to blame the victims sound delusional and their ideas are being debunked. At ‎the same time, there is a realization that within Israel is a hostile minority that simply ‎does not accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state. Clarity is forming, and it will lead to victory.‎

‎2. The Jewish fighting spirit is back‎.

The second good thing is that the Jewish fighting spirit is back on the streets. Men and women, ‎old and young, are responding to terror with defiance. Pepper spray, rolling pins, umbrellas, ‎selfie sticks, kicks, fists, running, and especially shooting -- Israelis are shooting bad guys (and ‎gals). Yes, there have been some horrific videos of Jews being gouged as though we're back in ‎a medieval Polish countryside. But even in those videos, soon enough, a gun-toting Jew ‎vanquishes the jihadi zombie. We don't cower and shriek as they wish we would, and it ‎demoralizes them. Our people's healthy fighting instincts have (amazingly) not been ‎corrupted by the media, or by the ideology of weakness. Remember: Fighting back is good, so ‎stay tactical out there, folks!‎

‎3. When we're terrified, they win‎.

Speaking of videos and fear: Today's video-centric world often works in the jihadis' favor. ‎Terrorists want to make us feel terrified. They try to achieve that by doing a terrible act and ‎publicizing it, using video to drive terror into our hearts. If a viewer is terrified after watching the news or YouTube, then the terrorists have succeeded. Don't let them. ‎Don't let them scare you. Don't let them bully you. Don't let them unnerve you. When you walk ‎out of your house with a big fork in your bag, you are saying that you'd rather fight than be ‎scared. When you don't cancel that trip to Israel, you are saying that you will not be cowed. ‎Remember, we Jews have always kicked bullies to the curb. From Abraham to King David to ‎the Maccabees. We've fought the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, and British, with tenacity and ‎much success. The jihad bully is next.‎

‎4. Don't mess with us. You'll lose‎.

The media, the U.S. administration and the U.N. are full of claims that ‎Israel is using too much force, indiscriminately slaughtering innocent people in ‎response to the jihad. This is classic anti-Semitic propaganda, blaming the Jews for some ‎heinous crime that in reality is the work of the anti-Semite. (This tactic ‎was also used in the blood libel and "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.") On the one hand, it is important to ‎correct those pervasive lies.

But when Israelis intentionally and justly neutralize ‎terrorists, it is important not to backpedal or mumble the pathetic formula that our army is moral ‎or that we try to save the lives of the terrorists we just shot. Rather, it is much better to say, "You ‎see? This is what happens when you mess with us." In other words, we are one crazy little ‎post-Holocaust country and we have zero tolerance for Nazi-like jihads, and if you start up with us, ‎you will face our ire and our fire. Contrary to how the world makes it seem, it's OK for us to want ‎to survive, and it's OK to say it.‎

‎5. Thanks, "world," but we can take care of ourselves‎.

Regarding "the world": It will never come to our aid. We already knew that, learned it the hard ‎way in the 1940s -- that's how the expression "never again" came to be. Part of the reason we established ‎the State of Israel is because "the world" can't be relied on to defend us. So why do we whine ‎about "the world"? Please let us stop hoping that the U.N. and the EU will condemn someone ‎other then Israel, and let us stop waiting for them. If we want to take care of business, then we ‎have to do it ourselves. Self-determination takes determination and no one will clean up our ‎mess or come to our rescue. Time to grow up, take charge, even lead.‎

‎6. Jihad is a force of chaos.

On one level, what we are dealing with here is radical Islam's fight against Israel, a Jewish, ‎non-Muslim entity in the Middle East. On a deeper level, this fight is between two universal forces: the creative and the destructive. Israel is about life, innovation, clean water, farming, ‎ education, medicine, health and prosperity. Israel is about enshrining the past and building ‎the future.

But jihadism is like a veil of darkness, repressive and regressive. It sees no value in ‎individuals, and only seeks to suppress people into conformity. Everywhere the jihad goes, it ‎brings entropy and chaos, the opposite of creativity and life. And jihad is not content with ‎the regions of destruction under its control. Rather, it is bitterly jealous of that small green country ‎in its midst. Jihad hates the Jewish state precisely because it is an oasis of life in the heart of its Middle Eastern desert. This distinction makes it all the more clear what value there is to jihad ‎civilization -- none -- and they hate us for it.‎

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About Me

I visited Hevron in November 2000 after the outbreak of the Rosh Hashanah War to see what could be done to assist in the face of the growing daily attacks on the community. After returning to work for the community in the summer of 2001, a bond and a love was forged that grows to this day. My wife Melody and I merited to be married at Ma'arat HaMachpela and now host visitors from throughout the world every Shabbat as well as during the week. Our goal, "Time to come Home!"